Off The Grid

While most people across the developed world take electricity for granted, quite a few countries are still off the grid. This was graphically illustrated by a famous photograph taken from the International Space Station in January 2014. In one frame, it tells quite a story. It shows the two Koreas at night-time with the south illuminated in light while the north is cloaked in darkness. According to The World Bank, 32 percent of North Korea's population have access to electricity.

As bad as that level of access may seem, there are places where it's even worse. As can be seen from the following infographic, huge parts of Africa have to cope without electricity along with sizeable chunks of the population in several Asian countries including Bangladesh, Myanmar, Cambodia and Papua New Guinea. South Sudan is the country with the worst level of electricity access worldwide - only 4 percent of the population there are connected to the grid. The situation is also poor in Burundi (7 percent) and Chad (8 percent).